India 2023 foreign exchange earnings from tourism could reach pre-covid level
₹71,235 crore compared with ₹23,584 crore in the same period in 2022, as per the ministry. To put in perspective, India earned a total of ₹2.1 trillion in foreign exchange from tourism in 2019, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year. Going by the latest data, experts believe India is well placed to meet 2019 foreign exchange earnings from the tourism industry.
In a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, tourism minister G. Kishan Reddy said India saw about 21.9% of foreign tourist arrivals from Bangladesh, followed by the US, from where 16.3% of total travellers came, another 10.3% from the UK, 5% from Canada, 4.5% from Australia. "As per provisional data received from (the) Bureau of Immigration, the Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during January to April, 2023, reached 79% of FTAs during the same period in 2019," Reddy said.
Tourism has got a boost this year with India’s G20 presidency, which has led to more than 200 meetings and events planned at over 60 locations across the country. About 23.7% of all foreign arrivals during January-April comprised the Indian diaspora. A large number of travellers, about 50%, came for a holiday or recreational purpose and about 11% came for professional reasons.
Around 6% visitors during this time came for medical tourism. In terms of departures, during the four-month period under review, 8.47 million Indians travelled out of the country, compared with 5.32 million a year ago, and 8.79 million in 2019. The top destination for the Indian traveller was the United Arab Emirates, with 26.48% of tourists heading there, followed by Saudi Arabia (11.10%), the US (7.58%) and Thailand and Singapore at about 5% each.
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